The reason anybody cares: If Trump is signed on, that means that his presidential campaign is nothing more than more than a pre-May sweeps month promotion for “Celebrity Apprentice.” Which it reeks of anyways.

We’re awaiting the network’s response on this. NBC is scheduled to make its official fall schedule announcement May 16 — but surely they know if such a key player is coming back.

Trump hasn’t declared if he’s running for prez. His excuse: His participation in his NBC show. Can’t star in a TV show AND be a candidate. The key sentence uttered during Trump’s response to Obama’s birth certificate unveiling Wednesday was Don’s off-hand explanation as to why he hasn’t announced yet:

“When the show is over — and the finale will be May 22 — I will be free to announce,” Trump said, inserting a plug for his show with the finesse of a blacksmith.

Interesting side note is the leader of this anti-NBC jihad: One of the network’s own, liberal MSNBC commentator Lawrence O’Donnell. (Former producer/writer of NBC’s longtime hit “The West Wing” to boot.) His 14-minute Olbermannian riff on the matter Wednesday (which faded at minute, oh, 11) is below.

“NBC has created a monster and it is called Donald Trump,” O.D. said Wednesday night on his show. “Trump needs media attention the way others of us need air to breathe.”

O.D. says there are executives at NBC who know whether Donald Trump is committed to appearing on his reality show next season. He’s not naming names. Yet.

“Those NBC executives should not be allowed to survive another day of entanglement” with Trump, he said, as the mogul is “using his NBC fame to spew hatred reeking with racist overtunes and undertones about the President of the United States.”

Take a deep cleansing breath, Larry. The Trump phenomenon — for the last seven people on the planet who consider his omnipresence anything more than pre-sweeps promotion — ain’t going anywhere.

A Gallup Poll this week showed that 64 percent of Amercans would DEFINITELY NOT vote for The Donald. That is slightly better than people (65 percent) who would DEFINITELY NOT vote for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Even worse: Trump may have his own birth certificate problem: Seven percent of Americans don’t believe he was born in Queens, N.Y.

Yup. A Gallup Poll shows that another 31 percent don’t know enough to say if he was born in the U.S. Gallup found that 24 percent of respondents had some doubt as to whether President Obama was born in the U.S.